Pregnant with my second daughter, Megan, I was determined to experience natural childbirth, without an episiotomy, and walk off the delivery table. Surprisingly, an obstetrician open to natural childbirth was hard to find in Cincinnati, Ohio. Another surprise was hearing the name of the physician who agreed to my wishes: Doctor Harry Roach. I did become the first mother to walk off the delivery table and sign out AMA (against medical advice) in 1974. More importantly, I felt proud when the nurse who returned Megan to me after cleaning her up, told me, “That’s the first time I had a newborn baby burp up breastmilk on my way to the nursery.”

Although small breasted, I produced plenty of milk; milk spraying out of the nipple not being suckled, able to collect milk to freeze, being available when I returned to work part-time nursing profession, when my first-born Erin was six months old, and Megan at nine months old. (Also, I felt privileged when Megan was willing to suckle another mother, to maintain her milk supply for Noah, her premature infant still in the hospital.) Breast pumps weren’t successful.

This past July 2025, I was lucky enough to rent half of a duplex home, a wide waterfall in my backyard, certainly a dream come true! Reminding me of natural waterfalls of breastmilk. Their full gown of white. So greatfull, Erin adding folds of fat when at three months of age, she had more than doubled her birth weight – don’t you just love baby fat? 😊It was challenging to get my fingers in between her folds.

But a most important waterfall happened the 2025 Monday before thanksgiving, while writing in my journal – reflecting on the previous weekend I had attended of ballroom dancing. While at breakfast, talking to a dance acquaintance, Mike, about our marriages; then sharing a past life as a prima ballerina which milked my tears to spill, Mike reaches to squeeze my hand. Tears fell as I wrote, “Mike’s loving connection: tears milking truer love for myself.” And then for others, like when I feel rejected by a few dance leaders.

I am not patient with plastics – pollution – ignorance. I feel helpless with those who lie daily – like Trump – who denies that the climate crisis exists. Impatiently, trying to convince my trumpster ex-husband of the truth. My consolation: NO KINGS protests rising up across the USA.

Simply living daily with PFAs, microplastics now found in our brains from the infested food that we eat, is not acceptable; can there be patience? I practice: replacing my plastic containers with glass; my garbage cans are now metal: it took much patience to fingernail-remove the large advertisement glued to its face. I have not bought water in plastic bottles for years.

Still, I haven’t totally emptied the recycling of the song I memorized to play on the piano, as a child: I am Not Worthy… the least of his favor. Meaning the Christian god, read of in the bible whose preacher recites from most Sundays, John 3:16, that you will be saved from hell (the scriptures say lake of fire) to obtain eternal life only if you believe in Jesus as your savior.

Jesus is no longer the “light of the world’ for me after taking 38 years to leave my church community. Too patient. Too fearful. Was our family’s religious addiction.

Now, I’m practicing patience while requesting the Town of Caroline Planning Board to shut off the one streetlight that floods my apartment windows, blotting out the natural light of the moon and stars shining over our small village. Over twenty years ago many tall streetlights were installed for safety: to prevent car accidents, or injuries to people walking along the road.

Presently, most homes shine outdoor lights at night. One streetlight turned off will not incur more risk, at the intersection of a dead-end street, where the speed limit is 35mph. I remind myself to “go with the flow,” like the waterfall in my backyard.

It just so happens that this week celebrates Halloween, where many get lost in costumes, and make-believe fears: tricks and boos. On October 27^th, I was treated to my first date with Joseph, after meeting on the dating app Our Time, for those over 55 years of age (I refuse to say old😊.) After a two-hour conversation during brunch, we like each other enough to go for a seven-mile hike to Sandy Run Falls, new to both of us. It is a 7-mile loop that we agree we are up for and enjoy 3 waterfalls along our way. Although we follow the orange blazes easily, we eventually realize we are not heading in the right direction as the sun begins to set. Joseph’s GPS does not identify the trails well but see we are too far from the parking lot to reach it before dark.

We do reach a clearing of deer stands, and a deer blind that Joseph says we could stay in overnight when the temperature dips into the 30s. Not acceptable. No livable. Even though I see an opening where telephone poles could lead us somewhere to a road…we are LOST. And we are at risk of hypothermia.

Joseph calls 911. We are assisted by dispatch who finds our cell phone location, at twilight. Greatfully, Joseph gave me his light jacket to put on over my light one. We, ‘patiently’ wait for an ATV to pick us up, take us to an ambulance for a ride to our car.

I laugh most of the way, telling the attendant, this is our very first time to become lost after years of being avid hikers. What a surprising first date! 😊

I have never liked the taste of alcohol, although when red wine was promoted to improve vascular health, long life, for some years I would mix a sweet red wine with sparkling grape juice for my supper.

In the 1970s, at a local bar, Nite Court, in Ithaca, ny, a handsome young man asked if I would go home with him. “No, I am not that kind of girl”, he replying, “that’s why you’re here.” I counter, “No, I’m here to dance.”

When I gave up my religious addiction, there were a few times I became that ‘kind a girl’; usually I wanted it to become more than just sex – to become a loving relationship. Sometimes it did.

I wanted to set my self-image to a higher bar.

In the 1980s, I set the goal of running a marathon a month for three years…using it as a motivation to stay physically fit and trim. I wore a t-shirt saying, “RUNNING FOR THE AVERAGE RUNNER.” No elite runner for me, running no more than 40 miles per week.

At mile 20, marathon runners often talk about hitting “the wall.” It is when your body says it is time to stop, to listen to your body. But no, you bear the pain, exhaustion, usually walking some of the last 6 miles. (of 26.2)

I’d ask myself, Dianea, why are you doing this? It’s crazy! My inner voice replies, ‘you love the recognition,’ the cheers and applause at the finish line.

The ‘gold’ medals I’d carry home with pride.

Gaining the woman’s national record for number of consecutive marathons – 36 in a row – eventually.

It wasn’t until the 1990s, when I became aware of my deeper need to be ‘seen’ and ‘understood’, ultimately loved.

I had set the bar way too high, physically.

Now, I share with long distance runners: marathons are abusive to your body, your joints, especially.

I’ve grieved the religious indoctrination, that I was born in original sin and have recognized the wrongness of the message of a piano song I memorized; I AM NOT WORTHY.

I’ve recently moved from a late 1800’s apartment where tall windows pour in grand light, as I do not use curtains, only valences you can see through. I chose to live there because the wide bedroom window glorified a view of a pond, a pocket of childhood memory that persists until you live it again.

April 2025, my landlord requested me to move with an eviction notice, ‘for the sake of renovations’, but my pocket of intuition says the landlord wanted more rental money. Because I shoveled the sidewalks and improved his property with flower gardens, I like to think he would think it would not be legitimate to raise my rent, me being a septuagenarian woman, with limited retirement.

I rode my scooter to places I’d like to live, and pocketed notes at various homes near waterfalls. Lucky me, I received a phone call from one landlord who said he was sick of cleaning the bathtub of his Airbnb and gave me the lease to sign, becoming the renter of his duplex where he and his wife live on the other side. Likewise, a late 1800’s house but not having as tall windows, yet a waterfall sings in my backyard, where one can swim as well.

My love affair of waterfalls exploded when my best friend, Gaylee, uses her book, 200 Waterfalls of Central and Western New York, to guide us on hikes to revel in their sweeping beauty until 2019 when she passed due to cancer, leaving me with deep pockets of grief, added to waterfalls of tears as I write a book honoring my “Dad Extraordinaire” lost in 1977, due to a sudden heart attack.

Dad wrote more than a hundred long detailed letters to me while in college and early marriage, from which I am writing Our Love Story!

At Ithaca’s Stewart Park, my eldest granddaughter, Denali, 31, sits on the bench alongside me, which I donated to Ithaca’s city park in memory: S. Michel Colbert-Kohl Dad Extraordinaire to Dianea Colbert-Kohl. Again, I tell her how her spirit seems to have escaped from a pocket holding my dad’s spirit – reborn to love me very much being like my dad.

Deeply sharing, eye-to-eye attentive listening, and yet different as she says I love you readily… at the end of our luncheon date, I think I heard it four times, whereas dad and I could only write those 3 precious words, not express them face to face. Pocketed fear.

Many are skeptical about past lives as was I, despite much research confirming healing from past lives therapy, until I connected to more than one lifetime in primal therapy. My crying, yes sobbing, confirmed and relieved the guilt I carried about dancing (too much, too often).

Still, I was surprised as Denali and I parted, (she lives in Spain) when I began sobbing while walking to my car and while driving. I open my pocketbook, grab a hankie where I blow my tears. Deep pockets of Design Of the Universe (DOU) sadness, honoring the love of my Dad and Denali – missing them!

Missing true love! (For myself as well.) *

*These moments seem like waterfall moments of truth.

I am the WHY girl. Just last evening, while eating dinner with a dancing friend, Virgilio sneezes, and automatically I say, “Bless you; where does that come from?” We shared two theories then I looked up on google: “way to keep demons away from sneezers’ soul”, along with other historical theories.

All growing up; I questioned the validity of the bible, fighting with my rigid religious mother’s rules; defending my dad, whom she humiliated while criticizing me.

I am the rebel of the family.

I am the proud driver of a Jeep hailing the license plate: CRYBABE – for more than 20 years…recently adding: Conserve Open Space.

Now, I’m on a rampage (maybe too strong a word, but a very good feeling) to rid sign clutter in Tompkins County, NY, ongoing for two years. ITHACA IS GORGES is a bumper sticker commonly seen in these parts. But now loud yellow orange signs are taking over, sprouting up like wildflowers; distracting one’s view from roadside wildflowers, trees, mountains and streams, or creeks as we say in these parts😊.

I want to enjoy the countryside. I do not like speaking in front of a group yet continue to stir up my apprehension monthly at the Tompkins County Legislature Committees concerning the environment: Tompkins County Transportation Council, Planning-Policy committee, Planning Energy and Environmental Quality. After calling and emailing the director of the highway department I was eventually ghosted. WHY I am ‘forced’ to speak 3-5 minutes only when public comments are allowed.

I ask WHY do we need Driveway signs for 8-9 miles of Coddington Road as driveways are seen one right after another all along these miles? WHY are large yellow signs up for DEAD END streets? As well as for other street names, when these streets have clear green signs at their intersection?

WHY? – I only hear silence.

And WHY do I often send Correspondence to the SUN magazine, asking to be interviewed (along with others) to focus on preventing anxiety, depression, and suicide in our youth, which continues to rise at an alarming rate?

I am a Marriage and Family Therapist, having written seven books focusing on the healing gift of tears. A sadness felt as nature is being trumped by signs.

For over 30 years, I have advocated for a HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP SKILLS COURSE to be implemented at Ithaca’s high school through many meetings and phone calls and petitions – the pot is still being stirred, while still on simmer.

TRUE to form…I want the truth to stick (out) when considering names for my children, not easily nicknamed. Their true names being called upon. Some parents think it is funny to name their child Robin Hood, or amazingly the obstetrician for my second daughter is named Harry Roach. Really! Although I liked the name Graham for a boy, I couldn’t see myself using it as he’d be called Graham Cracker, right? Teasing is too commonly mean. It hurts. Unnecessarily.

So, my first daughter is Erin – rarely called Ernie.

My second daughter is Megan who didn’t get so lucky– her dad creating “mugs” and a man friend called her Morgan?? What’s up with that? How come Nick got called out for ‘nick’ names? Silly questions?

Still, I want to be unique (special) when I become a grandmother. I don’t want to hear the generic ‘Hey, grandma.’ Or nana. Me and my two sibs called our grandmother grammy: a bit more unique?

So, I request my granddaughters Riley and Emily to call me Didi – just now realizing it’s a double whammy of what my dad called me – Di: only once did he address me ‘Dear Diane’ in one of the many letters he sent during my college years and early marriage; besides that one exception, it was always ‘Dear Di’ which many believe is endearing. Special.

I agree. Necessarily 😊.

Often, I called my young daughters “silly gooses,” an endearment that was and is authentic, as are their given names.

FYI: I just googled nicknames and read: “Alexinomia is associated with anxiety and avoidance behaviors with regards to saying names.”

May is my favoritest (yes, a word I made up😊) month of the year. Not only because trees are dressing themselves in leaves, and tulips and crocuses are budding various colors lost in winter’s snow.

May 6^th, my second daughter, Megan was born beautifully healthy, naturally. A miracle. Yet May 4^th is uniquely special, the birthday of my dad, who demonstrated love for me all growing up, when he was not obligated to. I am not his biological daughter, yet he signed my birth certificate, while loving my mother who birthed me unwanted, a child of rape. Can it be a celebration of my birth, as I know and feel I am meant to be here…greatly due to my dad’s attentive love, whose weekly letters during college and early marriage are documented tributes of his devotion.

Although an astronomer, research associate at Cornell University, dad wrote intimately about his feelings regarding his family, his work, his love of nature, his religion, his troubles. His gratitude. For a few months I have been writing Our Love Story, its foundation drawn from over 100 of his letters and cards.

On May 14^th, we celebrate my third granddaughter’s birthday, who just turned 21, legal to drink and willing to follow my lead dancing salsa, which is new to her. She follows amazingly well; but more importantly I follow her attention to last summer’s visit (2024), where she observes a photograph of dad’s (her great-grandfather) chest being open, holding his arms behind his back, standing next to his adult nephew, whose arms are folded across his chest. Closed.

This year 2025, Emily is the only one of her family who notices a necklace I am wearing: Best eye water reads one side, Compassion written on the other side. My oldest daughter, Erin, picked it out at an artist festival as a present for me, years ago. It celebrates tears as do mine while attending my fourth husband’s memorial, May 19^th, at the home of his present partner, Karen, along with his three siblings, whom I have not been in contact with since I left Gregory in 1998. With open arms.

Gregory is the husband whose distrust triggered me deeply, becoming the catalyst for me to heal little Dianea, unloved by her mother, missing her dad, soon to become a primal Marriage and Family Therapist still seeing clients at age 78.

I am a reflection of my dad’s volunteering for Suicide and Crisis Service during the 1970s. A rarity for a man back then. It’s as if he is a bright cloud holding me, floating me, as I ecstatically and greatfully celebrate!

Dedicated to the one I love most…daddy, your 119th birthday today!

I am a wild animal when I am climbing over and around gates in New York State parks near Ithaca, New York during the winter where the Finger Lakes Park Administration is afraid of litigation by those who may get injured.

Rather wild isn’t it that litigation is allowed when other trails install a sign HIKE AT YOUR OWN RISK instead of the DO NOT ENTER…VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Yes, I have received a ticket on occasion, and it is well worth the spectacular views of iced waterfalls. As an Ithaca bumper sticker reads: ITHACA IS GORGEous 😊!

I absorb these magnificent beauties like a sponge: greens, blues, and pink algae coloring the frozen veils, these waterfalls being barred as inaccessible. At Upper Buttermilk Falls, Carol and I hike early in February (Lower Buttermilk is gated), where we are surprised to see a three foot long white and burgundy striped, brown snake lounging at the edge of the ice-bordered creek. Our footsteps or voices do not ignite any signs of life.

I gently poke it with a stick to which a tongue shoots out with life, although its body remains motionless. We gawk with wonder, and I must take photos so you will believe us. 😊.

As we turn to leave, its head turns, looking at me as we walk by. Curious as we are.

My best friend of all time, Gaylee, died May 3, 2019, after only ten years of knowing one another. A cancer tragedy second only to losing my dad suddenly to a heart attack at his age of 60. Although Gayle never met my dad, she would say more than once, “I love your daddy.”

She’d heard of many loving daddy moments I’d spoken to her attentive ears, often with tears. We’d driven and hiked to many waterfalls found by reading her 200 Waterfalls of Central and Western New York guidebook in hand.

Roy H. Park Preserve is near her home in Ithaca, NY where we both reside gloriously. I am prompted to return there many seasons since losing her, now the first day of spring 2025, remembering how she called it Paradise Park.

Near 16 years ago, Gayle began placing heart rocks on the gorge wall near two converging streams, small waterfalls racing to larger ones. Like how my love for her vulnerable, sensitive, generous, loving whose openness and acceptance made it possible for me to share everything. And I mean everything! Even when I felt fearful or embarrassed.

A prize without price.

Every time we returned to paradise park, other hikers had added heart rocks discovered nearby, to the natural shelves of the gorge wall. And every year since her passing I add another heart rock each season and sometimes write “Gaylee and Dianea” with a stone, on a heart rock, where I and her partner, Jim splashed her ashes. Our love. Foreverlasting. Still growing heart rocks.

As I saunter into Salvation Army’s Thrift Shop, (some Ithacans call it Sallie’s boutique), a mannequin dressed in a bright red floor length billowy dress catches my eye. Looking closer, first to the price tag, $24.99. Then the size – I decide it deserves to be tried on.

Once in the fitting room, I manage to zip up the back most of the way. I’m stuck after I tug and tug. Until I’m out the door asking a stranger, a woman to complete the zip. Success!! It fits my 5’9” height perfectly; although I wonder if I could hold up this strapless wonder of frills and flounce.

I decide to risk it; and proceed behind the fitting room door to unzip. Stuck again! Thinking, should I decide to go outside again to request assistance where all can see? One woman tries and tries again. Then another woman holds the dress together as the other pulls and tugs. No success! Our laughter doesn’t help – except for our boundless mood. 😊 As the dress zipper breaks. Scissors to the rescue. I am free.

You might be asking why do I want this dress so much? I tell these helpful women that I am attending a Stardust ballroom weekend in April, (it is now January 2025) and it is perfect in size and price, now lowered to $1.99. More laughing. One woman tells me that a good seamstress works at Angelos dry cleaners that would be reasonable in cost. ANGEL to the rescue I quip.

When I cash out, I notice some ribbon-straps tucked inside where my boobs belong. Liberated again with a possible security.

Three weeks later, the seamstress collects $24.